


de capo / syncopation

by ghibliteez



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Fool Meets Pretty Boy, First Meetings, M/M, Somewhat Inspired by Doukyuusei, Yeosang as Sajou, Yunho as Kusakabe, what happens next will shock you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25207072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghibliteez/pseuds/ghibliteez
Summary: In the fourth room of the tenth floor of the storage building, there's a music class that never gets any light and always smells like valve oil, and it's where two unlikely people tilt into each other's orbits for the first time.Or: It's spring and Yeosang can't read music, but Yunho can. Sometimes, destiny is as minor as knowing something that another person doesn't.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	de capo / syncopation

The truth is, Yunho falls in love for the first time in the music class he’d been blackmailed into taking by his brother, right at the doorway of the fourth room on the tenth floor of the storage building where everything smells strangely of disappointment and valve oil, and he doesn’t realize it until several months later. 

It’s strange, because he always thought that he’d find love the same way Hongjoong found Seonghwa: after high school, somewhere in the big, bustling city without the stress of an on-coming geography quiz he’d crammed for the night before looming over his head, completely at ease with himself and with all the time in the world to figure out what it meant to be in love with someone. He always thinks of love and thinks of elbows bumping over arcade games and fingers laced together on the street and the sound of Paramore’s  _ Still Into You  _ in his head when he’d kiss his someone special. Maybe they’d meet in university, or on a group karaoke night, and something in him would think,  _ it’s you _ .

He never thinks of the contours of the water-stained ceilings in the fourth room of the tenth floor of the storage building, or the peeling white paint on the walls that turned to dust at the barest touch of fingers, or the incomplete note that he interrupts when he swings the door open with all the grace of someone who’d clearly expected the room to be empty. 

He never thinks of Kang Yeosang hunched over the music sheet they’ve been going over for the last two days, one of his slender fingers around the paper and the other bracing himself against the desk he’s sitting on. 

It’s a rainy day. There’s no sunshine on the side of Yeosang’s face when he turns his face to look at Yunho. There is just the gloom of the rain-heavy sky that spills grey into his eyes and makes them look like honey with pearls embedded in them in dim light, just the microsecond it takes for his rose-tinted lips to part in a silent  _ oh _ when he realizes it’s Yunho standing by the door. The curve of his spine when he sits is like the letter  _ c _ . He’s always had abnormally sharp teeth, and they glint like pieces of polished alabaster when he says, “Oh, it’s you.”

“I didn’t realize anyone was here, sorry,” Yunho says. He weaves through the desks with minimal incident, still thinking about the muffled sound of Kang Yeosang’s voice singing through the door that he’s only registering now. He feels stupid, really, and hopes that the heat in his ears don’t give away the fact that he’s blushing. “I just came back for my book. I left it here.” 

Kang Yeosang hums absentmindedly, his eyes still trained on the music sheet in his hands. He’s been in yet same class as Yunho every year since first year, though Yunho doubts he knows that. Kang Yeosang is popular  _ and _ the top one percent of their school, excelling in everything but arts, and is most likely gunning for the top universities in the country. Yunho is the average kid who’s always made to sit in the back row because he’s too tall for the middle and front rows and has a reputation for bringing his guitar everywhere. 

They’re not necessarily worlds apart, but they exist the same way Jupiter’s moons exist in its orbit: silent, and out of each other’s way. 

And yet, Yunho looks at Yeosang with all the curiosity of the thirteen year old he’d been the first time he’d seen a game of  _ baduk. _ He’s pretty in the same way sea glass is, gentle and frail and yet so complex. There’s something about the way his hands look cold but his eyes look warm, something about the way his eyebrows scrunch just slightly when he hums the song on the music sheet that makes Yunho glance at him a second time after he’s retrieved his book. 

Kang Yeosang has a low, rich tone when he quietly sings the song on the music sheet. It’s the type of voice you’d hear on the radio while flipping through stations, the type of voice you’d go back to just to hear the way it sinks into the words and settles in the spaces between them like honey sticking to wood.

_ Pretty,  _ Yunho thinks,  _ also he just missed a note. Still pretty, though.  _

“Um, Yeosang?” Yunho starts. A pause, and then Yunho is the center of Yeosang’s attention, a pair of warm eyes closing on him with a mix of curiosity and confusion. They’re the same color as the dark caramel sauce that Yunho likes on his ice cream in summer. Lamely, he adds, “You missed a note there.”

Yeosang blinks. “I did?”

“Yeah.” Yunho takes a few steps forward until he’s standing by Yeosang’s shoulder, close enough to see the music sheet where he’s holding it. He stands with enough space between them, a curving line right by Yeosang’s spine. “If you look here,” he points at the bar, “there’s a half note. So it’s  _ ah _ , and not  _ aah _ .” 

The hand clutching onto the page tightens its grip. Like crow’s feet, the paper wrinkles where his fingers touch. 

“I can’t read music,” Yeosang says, eventually, and Yunho thinks,  _ oh _ .

Yunho steps back. Lets Yeosang turn to look at him, his eyes summer warm as they lock on Yunho even though it’s the beginning of spring outside. The grey light in the room cuts shadows onto his face. 

“That’s okay,” Yunho tells him. His heart beats,  _ you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful _ like the opening beats of a song he’s struggling to find the words to. “It’s not hard, though.”

For a moment, neither of them speak.

The only sound in the room is the wind outside, the steady rustling of the leaves on the big tree by the window seat where Yunho sits, and the sound of Yunho’s heart beating in his ears. 

And maybe it’s the fact that Yeosang is looking at him the same way you’d look at the waning moon on a clear, starless night, or maybe it’s the fact that Yunho has always thought that Kang Yeosang is pretty, or maybe it’s the fact that something in Yunho is telling him that  _ this is it, this is it  _ and while he has no idea what  _ it _ is, he feels strangely determined to take it and hold it close before it passes him by. 

Or maybe Yunho is the type of careless boy who’d find a boy to potentially give his heart away to in a grey room that smells like valve oil, because he says, “If you want, I could help you practice.”

Kang Yeosang stares. Yunho’s heart drops like a weight. 

“Only if you want to,” Yunho adds, quickly. “You don’t have to say yes, it was just an offer. I guess it’s kind of weird? That I said that? I’m sorry, was that weird? I just — ”

“You’d do that?” Yeosang interrupts, and he sounds —not surprised. He sounds impassive, which is somehow even worse because Yunho has no idea what he’s thinking about. “You’d help me practice?”

Yunho knows he’s blushing all the way down to his collarbones and it’s the worst. “Yeah? It’s no trouble for me, and I’m pretty good at reading music.”

The spring breeze that cuts into the room through the sliver of space where the window isn’t shut properly rustles Yeosang’s hair, quiet and gentle like the touch of fingers. His eyes are like cuts of pyroxenes polished and left in sunlight. 

“Okay.” He says. He puts his music sheet down and straightens his back. 

“Okay?” Yunho asks, just to be sure. 

“Okay,” Kang Yeosang says. Yunho blinks and there’s a smile that’s not quite a smile on Yeosang’s lips, and it makes his heart stutter and stumble and fall all over again. “Tomorrow, then?”

It sounds, strangely, like a hand being extended towards him, or a promise that won’t be forgotten. 

“Tomorrow,” Yunho says, and feels, strangely, like he’s flying. 

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this for two reasons:
> 
> 1) The world needs more Doukyuusei inspired fics.
> 
> 2) I had the opportunity to be the 100th fic in the Yunsang tag and I took the chance.
> 
> Hope you liked reading! If you did, leave a comment or say something nice! :D


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